Recently I was in Louisville, Kentucky and I had the urge to ask the airport cabbie to take me to Fourth and Walnut (now 4th and Muhammad Ali Boulevard) where Thomas Merton had his famous epiphany. But since it was late at night and dark, and I did not have the time to linger, I decided against it. I was thinking about this pivotal event in Merton’s life and how he described waking from the dream and illusion of some separate holy existence because of a similar sentiment Albert Einstein expressed in a quote I found in my “Compassion” folder. Einstein memorably refers to our perceived separateness as “an optical delusion.” The full quote as I have it is as follows and I think it is worth pondering as we continue to grapple with “what is compassion?” and how to practice deep sympathy. Einstein writes:
We are part of the whole which we call the universe, but it is an optical delusion of our mind that we think we are separate. This separateness is like a prison for us. Our job is to widen the circle of our compassion so we feel connected with all people and situations.
Authentic religious faith and/or a healthy spirituality, I believe, is one that encourages us “to widen the circle of our compassion.” This is a simple but sobering litmus test by which to appraise one’s religious tradition, spiritual path, faith community, or lived faith. Widening the circle of our compassion, in and of itself, is countercultural in a day and age when religious fundamentalism, rooted in fear, insists on shrinking the circle of who can belong. In our lifetime it’s as if the circle assumes the form of a high round wall, not made of mortar and bricks but of all-knowing propositions and non-negotiable fundamentals that form (not character or integrity or community) but a sacred club, a private holy of holies (Einstein calls it a prison] in which the wall clearly demarcates who is in and who is out, who God loves and who God hates, who is saved and who is not merely lost but damned.
Widening the circle of our compassion requires the willingness and courage to dismantle the delusion of our separateness. It means also that we might have to let go of any sense that we alone possess the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help us God. I have found the hour glass to be an effective visual aid to illustrate the difference between fundamentalists and persons of great holiness, wisdom, and magnanimity. On the one hand, the fundamentalist, diving deeper into his or her religious tradition, worldview, and practice gets stuck in the narrow passageway where the two glass bulbs meet confusing the means for the end. On the other hand, the wise sage going deeper into his or her religious tradition finds a truth there that when discovered widens their world. The person passes through to an expansive realm while still valuing the means to that end. Thus, unapologetically the Dalai Lama can be a Buddhist, and Gandhi a Hindu, and Merton a Christian and still revere, know, and celebrate those of other traditions and the traditions themselves because they allowed their consciousness and circles of compassion to be widened and the connection to “all people and situations” intensified.
It should be pointed out, if it is not already evident, that this is not a given but rather the effect of spiritual formation that leads to transformation. Sometimes the conversion takes place in rather ordinary ways in seemingly secular settings. Merton is a case in point. As a young man he fled to the hills of Kentucky full of pious and vinegar, a bit full of himself, certain that he and the other monks were living the life that insured that the center would indeed hold, that the wicked, ignominious world was being sustained by the prayers of the monks and a patient, longsuffering God. In short, the young Merton (as he would later admit) suffered from a bad case of “optical delusion” in which he divided the world into us and them, living a well-meaning but sanctimonious life of separateness. His experience at Fourth and Walnut while making a somewhat uncommon trip into Louisville in the late 50’s changed all that and widened forever his circle of compassion and lay to rest any sense of separateness. The entire account is well worth reading (pp. 156-58, Image Books edition 1968) and does Merton and his commentary more justice. Allow me here for our purposes to compress some of that account as he recounts it in his book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:
In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream. . . .
This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. And I suppose my happiness could have taken form in the words: ‘Thank God, thank God that I am like other men (sic), that I am only a man among others.’ To think that for sixteen or seventeen years I have been taking seriously this pure illusion that is implicit in so much of our monastic thinking.
It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake.
Merton’s revelation changed his understanding of what it means to be a monk. It awakened him to the realization that giving oneself to God includes the joy of what it means to be “a member of the human race.” From that point on he understands his monastic vocation in light of falling deeper in love with all of humanity and all of creation. As a result, he became one of the great social critics and prophetic voices of his time in an effort to wake people up to their inherent oneness, to the illusion and delusion of separateness, and to the responsibility that God-given union implies. One of the implications is to commit one’s life to widen the circle of compassion.♦
REFLECTION:
The opposite of deep sympathy is indifference, apathy, and callousness But judgmentalism, an equally formidable opponent of compassion, is a less passive and more overtly aggressive foe.
Compassion joins us to others.
Judgmentalism is a “put down” and separates us from others.
Compassion is a bridge.
Judgmentalism is a high wall.
Compassion encircles like a grandmother’s arms to take others in.
Judgmentalism encloses to keep others out.
From whom do you feel the most disconnected? The most separated? Toward whom do you feel the most judgmental?
It’s easy to be compassionate toward those persons or groups we like, enjoy, or with whom we agree. Try practicing deep sympathy (in thought and/or action) toward someone or some group who do not fit into these categories.